Best Possible Rugby

Youtube highlights of rugby matches are usually terrible: 5minutes of only the point scoring and goal kicking, with angle replays. When in reality there is only around 30min of ball in play over an 80min match.

Just cut out all non-ball-in-play and give us a good 20 min highlight of ball in play. It’ll be quicker for the editors too. And talking about ball in play:

There has been a huge outcry for punishing refs after bad performances. But there is a simpler solution: WR needs to simplify an overly complicated rule book. Rugby has become too complex for the human brain to rightly process the variety of laws being broken in each moment.

Scrums and rucks are indistinguishable from magic. A ref could blow either way and technically you’d find something to justify his call.

Scrum set up, resets, and a high probability of a penalty make every scrumdown simultaneously a game changing gamble and a snoozefest to be fast forwarded.

We have to stop penalizing scrum technicalities. Make it a sheer power and skill contest again. Boring in? don’t care. Collapse? don’t care. Just get the frikken ball out! Ironically this will probably solve collapsing because there will be no reward for it anymore.

Ruck time has become a gordian knot. How do we begin to simplify this? The contest for the ball on the ground is one of the key distinctions from rugby league. Its important. Yet ruck penalties are the constant gripe of everyone not named Richie McCaw.

We could go back to the old rule: no hands in the ruck, you literally have to drive over the ball to win it.

Now for the worst part of the game, may God forgive me for uttering these words, but: “the boxkick.”

Boxkicks are like abusing the glitch in a computer game. Snoozefest and high chance of producing a card for taking the man out in the air, each time.

I understand why we boxkick:
Defensive excellence makes it risky to play in our own half.
Our chasers are right on the gainline rather than 10m back when our 10 kicks it.
High chance of getting the ball back rather than pingpong or chance of counterattack when our 10 kicks it.

But it needs to stop.

A popular suggestion has been allowing a mark-catch on any boxkick, anywhere on the field.

The rugby we love playing & watching is Ball In Hand.
Scrum penalties, ruck penalties, and boxkicking are the cryptonite of Ball In Hand play.

With our Tight, Flat, Wide Game Management, six of our forward pack are going to focus on running the Tight 9 ball options. On attack they will recycle between being in the present ruck, running the 9 option, and getting back into position for the next phase 9 option.

This is a totally different way of playing to the standard 2-4-2 attack pattern.

Two of our Forwards will be the designated Flat runners, focusing on carrying options off of 10.
They will probably be our two most athletic loose forwards.
Because they are not doing as much tight work around the rucks, these two forwards will be expected to go the full 80 minutes.

Our six Tight forwards are going to run the opposition forwards off their feet.
It will be an exhausting shift to keep up the pace of recycling successive phases.
So we set the expectation for them to keep this unbelievable pace up for just 40 minutes, and then the bench of six substitute forwards will take their place at, or just after, halftime to carry on with this pace.

On Defense, we take every opportunity to slow the game down and catch a breather: be slow to set up line-outs and scrums, one player always taking a knee after the whistle blows etc…

But on Attack we are relentless, its go go go, no brakes on this train, keep getting up, keep running the options, keep cleaning & supporting lines, even when your lungs and legs are exploding.

The 9 plays his options “Tight” around the fringes of the ruck, until the 10 or 12 see something and call for the ball. So this could be 3 or more phases of 9-balls until something opens up for the backs.
These phases have to be quick in order to make something of this usually hardest defended area of the game.

Ball carrier attempts linebreak, pumps feet, looks for offload or goes to ground.
Cleaner drives Ball Carrier through contact, and then looks to clean out the jackal threat, or if no jackler then pin the tackler from rolling away (milk a penalty and/or keep him from resetting in defense).
Sealer arrives and has options: immediate pick and go if pillar defense missing (and no call from 9 or 10), or seal the ruck for 9 to arrive.

Now the three forwards who were in the previous ruck need to get on their horse!
Sealer gets in position to be the next phase 1st Receiver, or arrives to clean the pick and go.
Cleaner gets in position to be next phase Ball Carrier, or arrives to seal the pick and go.
Ball Carrier arrives as Sealer to the next phase, or runs a decoy screen as the 9 will always pass to the 10 after a quick pick & go (part of our multi-phase attack plan).

This is tiring work and could go on for 3 or more phases until the backs call for it.
It is helpful for the blindside wing to come in on some of the 9 options, as 1st receiver or inside ball runner or pick and go, if he sees nothing happening in the backs.

When the backs eventually call for it, the 9 ball forwards must still run their options as a decoy screen, the 9 will pass behind them to the 10, but their mock charge will keep defenders from drifting onto the 10.

The 10 or 12 options will clean their own ruck.
Our previous ruck forwards will now run a 9 ball at the near side of this ruck.
Most times it will be a mock charge as we look to go for a quick 3v2 to the far side of the ruck (part of our multi-phase attack plan).

After this the 9 ball cycle begins again toward the open side of the field.

1. The amount of phases required to bring your wide-pods into play.
Watch your game film, count phases and pod involvements.
Most teams need +-5phases to bring a wide-pod back into play.
Average phases at amateur level before turnover? Less than 5.

 

2. The amount, and width, of passes required to bring your wide-pods into play.
Watch your game film, count the number of passes made per phase.
Most teams average 2 or less passes per phase (including the scrumhalf’s initial pass).

With regards to width of pass, if your wide-pods are in the 15m tram-lines, then the ball has to go 20 to 30 meters to get to them.
Watch your game film, notice how wide each phase gets outside of the defense before contact.
Most teams average no more than 5meters per pass, plus maybe another 5meters of sideways running drift.

 

3. The attacking skills required to make the wide pods an asset to an overlap.
The amount of times our guys have stopped a certain 3v2 or 2v1 on the outside because the wide forward decided to bash our winger rather than fix and pass? 90% of the time, every time.

 

So what do we do instead?
We want to involve all 8 forwards within 3 phases, every 3 phases.
Instead of thinking in “forward pods”, we think in “playmaker options”.

 

The Forwards only have 4 places to be:
2 forwards in the current ruck (there must be a Cleaner and a Sealer at every ruck)
2 forwards set up to run options off of 9
2 forwards set up to run options off of 10
And lastly, 2 forwards getting up from the previous ruck and moving to the inside-ball slots of the 9 & 10, and then to whichever slot will be empty for the next phase.

The backs are responsible for cleaning their own ruck when they go wide.
This simplifies life for our forwards & increases work rate due to ease of reloading.

This 3 phase system for organizing the forwards is the base of the Tight, Flat, Wide attacking platform.

 

World rankings divided into tiers of 6 teams each.

Each team plays the other 5 teams in their tier, home & away: thats 10 test matches per season.

This gets rid of point-ranking speculation by having the best teams play each other every single year.

For example England & New Zealand, the two star teams at the time, only played each other twice in the 2016-2019 period.

France is now the hot team, but has not played against South Africa since 2018.

This format also gives space to play an additional 2 to 4 test matches against teams outside of your tier, for legacy competitions such as the Six Nations & Rugby Championship.

At the end of every season, the bottom team of every tier is relegated to the lower tier. And the top team of every lower tier are promoted to the higher tier.

This helps the lower tier teams play regular & competitive matches with a clear pathway to playing better ranked teams. It gives every team something to play for: promotion/relegation, world cup placing, and actual rankings based on the best teams playing each other home & away every year.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

World cup seeding is based on the Top 16 ranked teams from the year preceding the world cup.
There is a clear pathway for lower tier teams to make the world cup: you have to place within the top 16 teams by the end of the season directly preceding the World cup year.

The year following the worldcup sorts the tiers by their world cup results.
For example it is possible to jump a tier by having a strong worldcup showing (Japan in 2015), and drop a tier by having a poor worldcup showing (England in 2015).

A Tier Two Worldcup for teams ranked 17-32, running concurrently with the main tournament would do wonders for motivating the growth & development of the game beyond the traditional rugby nations.

These teams would play curtain raisers for T1 matches, or at smaller venues in the host nation.

This is how Rugby came to be known as the most inclusive game in the world:
Teetotal Christians would pack down alongside Promiscuous Drunkards.
Neither had the power, nor the thought, to get the other one kicked out of the club for their *personal* lives.

I didn’t tip all the drunkards beers out. The drunkards didn’t force me to drink.
We enjoyed our rugby together.
Then I went home to a bible study & they went home with a girl they met after the match.
We enjoyed a hard 80 together & then just carried on with our own personal lives.

If you are a good team man, people will tolerate your quirks, whether you are liberal or traditional, this is how mens clubs rolled for generations.
Me being “traditional” had no control on them being “liberal.”
Unless one of us somehow had a *power* to force the other to violate his conscience…

Professional Sport has become that power, used by corporates & bureaucrats to enforce their personal beliefs on the public space.
Using Rugby as a weapon to control others’ personal lives, sets off a fight for control over that weapon, & puts everyone in the room on edge.

Now instead of holding space for each other’s *personal* beliefs, we are forced to either fight them for the gun, or violate our conscience by conforming to their beliefs, be they Liberal or Traditional, or else get “executed” from the group/job/club.

Male-space bonding of diverse men & rite of passage through a blood-sport, are crucial to young mens personal & public development.
Instead Rugby is now a blood-altar, forcing young men to sacrifice their personal conscience to the public beliefs of corporates & bureaucrats.

Let us return to the good vibes of diversity being *personal uniqueness* not *public conformity*

Put the gun down. Stop the executions of those whose personal lives do not conform to yours.
Let us return to the joy of 80minutes together, after which we carry on with our diverse personal lives.

Before each match, I remind my lads to control the controllables (their individual skills & the team pattern)
And to not focus on, but rather grin at, the uncontrollables (the referee & the opposition).

There are many things that are out of our control in life, such as other men’s personal lives.
Grin at them, and refocus all of your energy into controlling your controllables: your own personal life.

Rugby prepares a young man to brave the lows of defeat & enjoy the highs of victory, by putting him in a team full of diverse men, who won’t be controlled by each other, but rather freely contribute their unique part to achieving a common goal together.

When 10 catches the ball he can run through a flow chart:

What part of the field am I on?
if in our 50m, Kick Flow.
If in their 50m, Run Flow.

Kick Flow
1. is one of the back 3 missing?
If yes kick to that space. If not…

2. bomb between two of them.
Or if the defense is rushing hard with no sweeper…

3. chip & chase behind rushing defenders.

Run Flow
Get as flat as comfortable to the 5th defender from the ruck to sit the defense, then:
1. is the slide runner calling for early ball (behind the punch runners)?
if yes pass out-the-back. If not…

2. is there a lazy 4th Defender for the blindside wing?
if yes pop inside. If not…

3.is there a gap for me?
if yes take it! If not…

4.is there a gap for the punch runners?
if yes draw and pass.
If not… let them take contact for you anyway, and get yourself setup for the next phase.

Good Scrumhalves & Flyhalves understand the principle of patient & wise buildup: you don’t need to do everything on phase 1!

This is a great success if you can suck in defenders and force the defensive line onto the back foot as they retreat onside & figure out how to reset against your next phase.